So many of the stamps from the ‘Be Merry’ release are suitable for seasons other than winter and occasions other than Christmas. For this card I used the ‘under the trees’ stamp, masked out the little critters, snowflakes and gift and chose a warm colour scheme to make an autumn card. I stamped the ‘under the trees stamp in versafine vintage sepia ink. I cut a little post-it mask to protect the area where the critters and hanging snowflakes were as well as wiping ink off the circles in the sky so they wouldn’t stamp either. I left the stamp in the stamp positioning tool for re-stamping later. I began by paint a pale wash of tumbled glass distress stain over the whole piece of hot pressed watercolour paper keeping the edges darker than the centre. I added some forest moss, crushed olive, mustard seed, spiced marmalade painting around the trees and ground as well as painting some loose background trees into the damp panel.

I dried the panel before painting the wooden fence so the distress stains would not bleed out of the stamped image as in the background area. I used gathered twig and vintage photo distress stains to paint the fence then dried the panel again so I could restamp in the stamp positioner. By the time I had added all the blended colour the original stamped trees and bushes were less prominent so I inked them with a ground espresso marker and re-stamped and then painted over until they stood out once more.

To finish it off I stamped a sentiment from Penny Black’s ‘happy wishes’ set in fossilised amber distress ink then versafine vintage sepia several times over the top.